


just happy accidents

by smartlike



Category: 30 Rock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>that's a series wrap on Wesley Snipes</p>
            </blockquote>





	just happy accidents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [screamlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide 2013, screamlet. Hope this is what you were looking for - I was surprised how delightful Wesley was to spend the holiday season with - thanks for the great prompt.

His flat is strewn with Cadbury wrappers and empty wine bottles, so when the phone rings, Wesley can't find it. Or, in truth, he doesn't actually bother looking for it, just rolls over on the couch and groans into the cushion. He has a noggin-knock that can only come from drinking one too many glasses of Scottish wine - the extra sulfites give it the flavor he appreciates so, but also really increases the potential for feeling like you've been hit by a train in the morning. Or, perhaps afternoon, Wesley isn't sure. In any case, the shrill sound of the phone is only making him feel worse, so he just buries his face into the rough fabric, waits for the noise to stop, and falls back asleep. 

When Wesley wakes up again, there's only a very dim light coming in through the windows on the opposite side of the room. He frowns, thinks that he really should get new curtains for the place. Though, again, in truth, the flat isn't his and he doesn't know if he's actually permitted to change the decor, no matter how tasteless the current choices are. After being fired, having his engagement summarily ended, and being forced back to England, he's now taken up residence in his cousin's gaudily outfitted flat in London while she's on vacation with her married boyfriend. Wesley has been staying here for five weeks and at this point, he thought he was starting to adjust - if not to the leopard print curtains, then to the current state of affairs in general. However, it now appears he may have overestimated the situation.

He finally pulls himself off the couch and rubs at his eyes, trying to piece together the previous evening. He had come home from the cinema, parked his velocipede in the garage, and then-- oh. Yes. He'd flipped on the telly when he returned home only to find a special on preparations for next year's Olympics. If the reminder that he was stuck here in London for the foreseeable future wasn't enough, there was a segment on NBC's coverage partnerships that featured some sort of atrocious "comedy" segment from Liz Lemon's awful show. Wesley had actually taken to watching the show on occasion back in the States when he was waiting for sweeps and what he had assumed would be a long-awaited culmination of their fate and it had decidedly not grown on him. To see its sophomoric idiocy here as a reminder of his darkest moment - abandoned and humiliated by a woman he could barely stand--. Well, it had been too much and Wesley had opened a bottle of wine. He only really remembered the first bottle (and none of the chocolates), but there are at least three empty bottles that he can see in front of him. He rests his head in his hands and sighs. His life is starting to resemble a transport accident and he's pretty sure the insurance claim has been rejected.

Thus, given all the heavy emotion and the hour it takes for the aspirin to kick in, Wesley doesn't remember the phone call until that night. 

"Mr. Snipes, this is Stephen Levy from Pope, Levy, and Kramer." The voice on the answer-phone is soft and lilting, and, most importantly, American. "We've reviewed your CV and I think you may have the expertise we're looking for."

Six days later, Wesley is on a plane back to the States with a new job awaiting and a new determination that perhaps Liz was right and the universe wasn't pushing them to settle after all. At least not for each other, he allows, since he has a strong suspicion that anywhere in North Carolina might be closer to settling than not. But, Wesley, reminds himself, there will be no Olympic tragedy looming over him there.

**

The situation is unique and Wesley is rather bursting with excitement. AirBike has a non-accident policy that is activated when a situation causes the airline to have to refund or provide vouchers to the passengers of any given flight. From what Wesley understands based on the brief summary he received via electronic mail, some sort of riot broke out on a flight from New York to Raleigh-Durham and the airline is likely going to have to issue apologies and flight vouchers to 149 passengers. The airline believes their policy applies as the issue was instigated by a passenger (the 150th passenger, who will as such _not_ be receiving any kind of voucher) - Wesley's task is to determine if this is indeed the case and sign-off on the pay-out if necessary.

He quickly reviews the notes his assistant had handed him at the office, parks in the airline's lot, and heads into RDU where the crew from flight ABK-7531 ultimately ended up. Things have been going quite well for Wesley here at PL&K and he's hoping that a positive resolution of such an unusual case will increase his profile, maybe leading to some work on one of the more prestigious portfolios, a future transfer to an office in a more appealing location, and ultimately fodder for his CV that could help push him into a better position at a firm with Manhattan offices. He is thrilled not to be in London, but he's forced to drive here in North Carolina when he'd far prefer to cycle, and he finds both the Southern accent and food to be wretched. 

Only a handful of passengers were willing to actually take the flight to RDU after the events on the plane, most preferring the option of being placed on a later flight after such a harrowing experience, so it only takes about an hour to collect the various passenger statements. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the pilot may have made some poor choices, but all in all, the accounts do support the airline's claim that the passenger was the problem. According to the other passengers, the seemingly insane woman claimed to be the pilot's girlfriend and in what was either a lover's spat or just a complete mental break, she started a riot, threatened the captain and crew, and planned to open the emergency exits while the plane was on the runway. Based on the descriptions, Wesley is rather glad that he doesn't have to interview this passenger until he's had a chance to get the details of the case pretty well sorted so he can keep that meeting as perfunctory as possible.

He's asked for a cup of tea to be brought to him, but the secretary from the airline doesn't seem to be very dedicated to her job, so Wesley's feeling a bit parched and ready to be done with the interviews when the flight attendant sits down across from him. Wesley is a consummate professional, though, so he smiles politely and looks down at the notes. "Mr. Wells, thank you for speaking with me."

The man straightens his lips in something that might be an attempt at a smile. "You can call me Stewart." He pulls at his polyester vest. "I just want to get this all over with. The entire thing was exhausting and I need to sleep."

"Yes, yes," Wesley agrees. "I've interviewed the passengers already, so just a few questions and we should be able to move right along." Wesley picks up his pen and holds it poised over the notepad in front of him. "Can you just please relay the situation to me in your own words?"

Stewart sighs. "It was a clusterfuck." He holds both hands out, perhaps in apology for his language, and then begins gesturing with them as he tells the story. "Captain This-Much-Turbulence-is-Totally-Normal has his girlfriend on this flight." Stewart bites his lip. "Who, by the way? Is clearly on the verge of taking up golf or wood-working and realizing she has no interest in men--" Wesley has not yet taken any notes and he raises an eyebrow at Stewart who rolls his eyes in return. "Right, right, sorry. So, his awful girlfriend is on the flight and he is arrogant on a good day, but he's showing off for her and just being kind of gross in general. So then, we're delayed a little bit and it's really not that bad, but Ms. Lemon over there just kind of loses it--" Stewart pauses when Wesley drops his pen.

"Ms. Lemon?" he chokes out, reaching for the passenger manifest in front of him. It seems unlikely, but then, it's not a common name.

"Captain Burnett's girlfriend?" Stewart answers. "She riles up the other passengers, presents a list of demands, fights with the captain, and then, well, from there it just escalated--"

But Wesley isn't listening, flipping to page three of the manifest. It's right there in the middle of the page and Wesley wonders how he missed it before: _Elizabeth M. Lemon_. Wesley actually feels like he may faint and really wishes his tea had arrived. He closes his eyes, thinks back over the descriptions provided by the various passengers and realizes that yes, the crazy riot-initiating woman is most likely his very own Liz Lemon, ex-settling soulmate, ex-fiancée. He pushes the piles of papers across the table a bit and stands.

"Um, Mr. Snipes? You look a little pale - is there--? Do you need a doctor?" 

Wesley turns on his heel and leaves the room, the sounds of Stewart flailing fading. There is absolutely no way he is going to fly to New York in three days and interview Liz Lemon about a meltdown she had on her pilot boyfriend's airplane. Though if the accounts Wesley's heard are true, he likely isn't her boyfriend anymore. But that's neither here nor there, because yes, Wesley wanted this opportunity and now part of him suspects that fate is still pushing he and Liz together, but he has only a small amount of dignity left and there is nothing he can imagine that would be worth going through any of this again. His new plan is to settle for not settling.

**

It takes a few more months, but Wesley gets things back on track again. He finds a place to take out his foot-cycle and he enjoys the lack of cars disrupting him, though the North Carolina woods are not quite as lovely as Central Park. He focuses on his work and he finds other opportunities to prove his skills. He does not think about Liz Lemon and he is always sure to turn the television off if he's at home when her terrible show is about to start. Eventually, it pays off and a colleague from his old firm phones to ask if he'd like to come to his summer house to discuss an opportunity in Manhattan. Wesley sleeps through the short flight to New York and arrives in the Hamptons feeling refreshed- nothing about the large beach houses, smiling people in tennis whites traveling with him, or the sounds of crashing waves feels like settling. He is there all of ten minutes when he sees a woman who he would recognize as Liz even if she weren't arguing with someone and it feels like someone punched him in the face - a feeling he is familiar with, thanks to some unpleasant years as the favorite target of his public schoolmates. 

"I _understand_ that I need to advise you if I have to change my reservation," Liz is gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes at the bored looking woman at the Jitney office service desk. "This is me advising you that I have an insane neighbor and I have to go back to Manhattan for legal reasons."

Wesley ducks behind a column and peers around to watch as Liz pulls at her rat's nest of hair. 

The beleaguered service professional snaps her gum. Wesley has the feeling she's used to women yelling at her. "Are those two things related?" Wesley can't tell if she's intrigued or if she's just being polite.

Liz sighs loudly enough that Wesley can hear it from his hiding spot. "They are not. Well, based on the number of fireworks and illegal boating activities going on I assume eventually Tracy and legal reasons will end up being related, but for now, no. I need to go back to the city. I have to appear in court, so I have to go back. Today." She pushes her credit card towards the woman. "For all you know, I'm a dangerous criminal. Just change my reservation, please."

"You need to make all changes to your Jitney reservation in advance." The gum snaps again and Wesley debates going over to see if Liz needs his assistance. She does look rather harried - her strangely large dress is disheveled and it looks like she forgot to remove her socks before putting on her sandals. Perhaps he should just accept all of this and try to renew their acquaintance - running into someone like this cannot be coincidence. But before he can decide, Wesley hears a cough behind him, and it's Mitchell, his job opportunity. So he walks away from fate again, the sound of Liz demanding to see a supervisor lingering in the air behind him.

One more time, Wesley manages to put the shock of seeing Liz out of his mind, because Mitchell does offer him a return to Manhattan. Wesley accepts and he is distracted moving himself and his possessions to New York. He's a little thrown when he finds a DVD copy of _Hot Tub Time Machine_ that he doesn't recall buying tucked inside the last box he moves into his new flat, but he frowns into his mirror and reminds himself that he is back in Manhattan and finally no worse off from his dalliance with Liz Lemon and he is not going to let a memento of their horrible time together upset him.

And it doesn't, really. The DVD is not that important. More important, however, is that two weeks after he moves back, he sees Liz outside of Dr. Kaplan's office after his six month cleaning - he holds down a wave of nausea, focusing on the minty taste of the toothpaste in his mouth and ducks back inside until he sees her walk past and turn the corner. Next it's at the strange popcorn restaurant near his office that Mitchell inexplicably loves where she's arguing that butter doesn't count as a topping because "that is just _assumed_!" and that she should be given butter _and_ cheese at no extra cost. Wesley excuses himself, dashing back to his office before she finishes her rant. He hyperventilates into a paper bag until his assistant brings him the drug test results for the driver of the freight train that went off the rails in Connecticut the previous week which demand his attention. 

After that, he sees Liz at least once a week. Each time, after the opportunity has passed, he swears that if it happens again, he'll approach her. He convinces himself it won't be that bad, that if he just sacks up and speaks to her then fate will let it alone. But instead he always feels like the wind's been knocked out of him and just blinks at her until the adrenaline hits and he runs away or hides himself somewhere. Because he wonders if there's a pattern to the sightings, he starts keeping a list of the times he sees her in a blank book he buys for that purpose and refuses to call a journal.

Locations of these encounters include, but are not limited to:  
the steps of Lincoln Center (where she seems to be arguing about environmental responsibility with a small child who has released a balloon into the sky);  
the 1 train during rush hour (a train Wesley almost never takes and where he is able to avoid her despite being trapped on the train because she's shouting into her mobile about something that sounds like a show on a North Korean news network);  
a pop-up cheese shop in SoHo (of course);  
a curry restaurant in Tribeca (where he is attempting to go on a date with an old school chum of Mitchell's who apparently has a thing for Brits-- needless to say, the date does not go so well after he slides under the table to avoid being seen by Liz and Jenna);  
and the cinema for opening night of _The Deathly Hallows_ (despite the fact that Wesley made a point to go to the cinema downtown because he has started avoiding the Upper West Side entirely). 

When he swears he sees her picking up trash in the park in mid-August, Wesley sits down at his desk, flips the pages of his list, finishes his afternoon tea and makes an appointment with an analyst. He spends the first hour curled on the leather couch trying to explain the plot of the second series of _Chums_ and how Russ and Rebecca broke up, but everyone knew they were going to get back together in the spring - sort of a metaphorical sweeps of the heart, really. The doctor doesn't seem to understand, exactly, but stares at the handwritten pages in his book and tells him he should definitely plan to keep coming for quite some time. Wesley starts seeing her every other week and every morning when he wakes up, he repeats "I control my own fate" three times in the bathroom mirror. 

There are a lot of places in the city that Wesley avoids, but Dr. Morgan says they will conquer that eventually and in the meantime when he travels through the streets, he stares straight ahead and he never knows if Liz is nearby, though he's not quite cured enough not to assume she is. It only backfires once, when he takes his foot cycle out on a surprisingly warm and dry late December day for a trip through Riverside Park and almost runs directly into Liz in front of the Joan of Arc statue. He loses control as soon as he sees her and veers off the path. He narrowly avoids her, but she drops the hot dog she's holding and shouts obscenities after him, but not his name, so he assumes she didn't recognize him. Wesley is not sure how he feels about that. When he's a safe distance away, he turns and sees her talking to a tall man in a truly hideous purple turtleneck who appears to have offered her a napkin for whatever hot dog detritus she assuredly has on her clothes. Wesley takes three deep breaths and cycles directly to Dr. Morgan's office.

**

There was a train crash in Queens last night, so it's shaping up to be a good day. A sentiment which Wesley has been expressly forbidden from sharing with clients by Mitchell. Still, he can't help but feel a little giddy as he sifts through the photos on his desk - there is a great deal of mangled metal. He pulls up the policy on his computer and skims through it, there are about five clauses which could prevent pay-out, so he'll have to do some investigating. He smiles down at the stack of photos one more time and slides them into his messenger bag before putting on his velocipede helmet and heading out to interview some of the passengers who have been waiting at the Amtrak offices.

Wesley has taken a tour of the crash site and interviewed three people when he hears a familiar voice say, "Jack always said that train travel was for hobos!" Wesley stiffens immediately and slowly, carefully looks over his shoulder. Liz Lemon is sitting perched on the edge of a blue plastic chair, typical food stain on her blazer, glaring and holding her mobile to her ear. There is a small blonde girl sitting on her lap and Liz hands her a box of animal biscuits as she speaks. The girl wrinkles her nose, but takes the treat. "Criss, I know, but no one was hurt. Can you just take Terry to ballet and pick up something for dinner?" 

Wesley takes a moment to wonder how Liz always seems to be shouting manically at someone or something before closing his eyes. He focuses on his centering, reminds himself that fate is in his control, pulls in two deep breaths, and walks slowly out of the room, listening to be sure Liz continues her conversation.

"I have to go, err--" Wesley frowns at Karen, his co-lead on this investigation. There are not actually a lot of train crashes here in the States and he cannot believe that Liz Lemon is ruining this one. "It's a claim I thought was closed that needs to be--"

"Fine, I've got this." Karen waves him away and turns back to her interview. Wesley doesn't feel that Karen conducts herself appropriately, and would normally discuss this with her, but he needs to leave before Liz sees him, so he just nods and straps on his helmet, pedaling quickly back to Manhattan.

It has been years since the day Liz humiliated him and broke off their engagement with a phone message. He has repaired his life, the London Olympics managed to come and go without destroying his home country's infrastructure, and Wesley has undergone extensive psychological treatment - he sees Liz less frequently these days and when he does, he's generally able to accept it much more calmly. However, he still does not understand why the universe won't cease presenting him with Liz like his mum's cat who is always placing mostly dead mice on her pillow in the morning. Wesley is fairly certain that Liz has never seen him, but that is the very definition of a small favor, and part of him thinks it's unfair that she isn't haunted by fate like he is. 

In his office, he collapses back at his desk, scrubbing at the smear of cycle grease on the hem of his trousers. Dr. Morgan doesn't answer, but Wesley doesn't leave a message, just heads out to see if she can fit him in before the end of the day, telling his assistant that he's taking the rest of the day as a holiday. The train crash was his only case today anyway.

Dr. Morgan is with a patient, so Wesley slumps down in one of the too-soft chairs in the waiting room and thumbs through the stack of magazines. There's a three-week old issue of _Entertainment Weekly_ with a cover story on _Grizz and Hers_ and Wesley frowns and shoves it aside. A hand reaches for it and Wesley starts a little.

"Ugh," the woman in the chair next to him holds up the magazine. "Have you seen this show?" The woman has a Scottish accent. Wesley shakes his head - he has very carefully avoided NBC's new surprise hit. "Horrid. I don't understand American television at all. God, give me _Chums_ any day."

Wesley smiles, "No one here even knows who Russ and Rebecca are! I assume this," he waves his fingers at the magazine, "dreck isn't even half as good." He holds out a hand. "Wesley Snipes."

"Such a British name - it suits you perfectly." She takes his hand and Wesley takes two deep breaths. "What brings you to the States?"

By the time Dr. Morgan is finally available, Wesley has learned that the woman's name is Ina, she's an avid cyclist, and she knows four separate places in Brooklyn to get Scottish white wine. He tells the doctor that they're having dinner the next evening. Dr. Morgan cautions him not to rush, but Ina chooses a Tex-Mex place in Hell's Kitchen where she laughs beautifully when he asks if she believes in fate and eats every bit of her enchiladas without spilling anything.

Three weeks into their relationship, Ina declares Thursday night their official date night so they never have to be home when _Grizz and Hers_ is on. Six weeks in, Wesley tells Dr. Morgan that he thinks perhaps he should reduce his appointments to monthly. He marries Ina the next year, just after sweeps at a Scottish vineyard, and if Wesley ever crosses paths with Liz Lemon again, he doesn't notice.


End file.
